Flowers From Algernon

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Finally, spring arriving in Maine, with such passion it calls for no less than Algernon. Yes, you too can receive his flowers, but first you must promise me three things:

1. you will read it aloud (IF circumstances require and you are sure you know how, you may read it to your inner rather than to your outer ear).
2. you will absorb each line as a complete rhythmic unit, and will do slowly enough to let any shade of sound or meaning, even one so subtle it might feel simple, unfold fully in its own time before you proceed to the next line.
3. once each line has unfolded for you fully, you will return and read the whole passage aloud, a little more slowly but in steady rhythm, at least twice more.

For winter's rains and ruins are over,
And all the season of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
And time remember'd is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins.